The Royal Blog

Wild gyrations in the coffee market, and how to cope. If you’ve been watching the coffee market recently, you are doubtless aware of the massive decline in coffee futures prices on the Intercontinental Commodity Exchange (“ICE”, colloquially still known as the “New York ‘C’ Market,” or just “the C”). Since peaking at $2.30/lb on September […]

OK, the truth is that we’ve been receiving Ethiopian coffees for months now, but unless you are booking forward with us, you’ve likely not seen many, if any, available on our SPOT Offering List. This is because they’ve all been selling out in advance of arrival, or shortly thereafter. Happily, we are about to reach […]

Editor’s note: This update was a collaborative effort between Caitlin McCarthy-García, Max Nicholas-Fulmer, and Charlie Habegger.  On a global level, weather patterns in Brazil brought doubt to the world’s coffee supply in mid-2021; while in Kenya, labor and input costs on the farm remained ever high due to the pandemic. In Kenya specifically, movement of people […]

About a month ago, I discussed some factors that led to the C market’s rise. Now that the C market has gone above the highs of the drought-driven market of 2014-15, I want to address our pricing specifically. While prices have increased due to freight and higher internal prices for cherry and parchment over the […]

The C market, as of October 14th, is trading at $2.09/lb, back to the levels reached immediately following the frost in Minas Gerais and other coffee regions of Brazil this past July. This is in spite of nearly ideal rainfall patterns in Brazil. Drought no longer seems to be a primary concern, although it remains […]

We are updating this blog entry weekly. Last update was April 13th, 2020.  These weeks have been a whirlwind, but we’ve managed to keep coffee flowing in and out of our warehouse and handle QC responsibilities, albeit with a skeleton crew to minimize contact points among our staff. We thank those of you who have […]